The Tender Space inside my Heart
wants to connect with the tender space inside your heart
Spoiler alert! This post is about the loss of my pet goat.
But just like life itself, it is not only about losing my goat. It is also about grief, heart-tenderness and the pain implicit in being human and committing to loving deeply. In the end, it is a post about feeling our hearts (or avoiding it).
To me, it is a sad post to write. Typing whilst my heart is still gently broken and having the words coming out of the cracks feels vulnerable. This is exactly why I chose to write today. Not tomorrow. Not in a week. But now. From the cracks.
Modern-day culture has “sadness phobia” and this is a massive problem as it leaves us in a state of semi-participation with life. The amount of energy required not to feel pain is so massive that I get tired just thinking about it. But this seems to be what our Instagram culture has us believe. That life can be fully lived with our hearts intact.
I am experiencing a type of homeopathic grieving state.
Losing my pet is sad enough to connect me to all living things but not big enough, as it would be if I had lost one of my kids, that it would overwhelm my capacity to do anything else apart from grieving. This homeopathic grief is offering me a gentle reminder of the sacredness of life and the preciousness of all living creatures whilst still keeping me present in my daily tasks.
My pace, however, is slower.
More c-a-r-e-f-u-l.
As if living was a martial art best done with care. The air is thicker.
My attention is clearer.
How I dreaded the car entering my driveway last night.
The sounds of the wheel made my stomach turn and my heart beat fast. I knew that when the vet arrived it wouldn’t be long before we had to say our goodbyes.
Bullseye was the name of our pet goat. He had been sick for the past few days and the inner circles of “goat lovers” know that being prey in the wild, goats have mastered the art of hiding when they are unwell. When goats get sick enough to get off food (that is when we usually notice they are sick) they are mostly too far gone to heal.
Still, I had hope.
Two days of not eating for a goat is not trivial so I knew this probably meant he was dying. The vet would come to check on him so we could make an informed decision. When I heard the sound of the car approaching I knew it…it was time.
And so it was.
We shed light tears and said our farewells. Me, my partner and my oldest daughter. My youngest is at camp and this is a whole other problem (she still doesn’t know that her pet was even sick). We thanked him for sharing time with us and filling our lives with the laughter that only pets can do.
One injection and there it was.
Lifeless body on my lap. So intimate. So sad. So beautifully sad.
We dug a hole in our land, next to our other goat, (also dead but this is another story) and we covered it with earth, tears and raindrops.
I didn’t have pets growing up. I also didn’t grow up on the land, as we live now.
I am the product of an urban upbringing and it took me years of undoing to feel at home here, with this new and slower pace of life. I had been used to traffic jams, overcaffeinated interactions from an overactive nervous system and oceans of people.
Now, my life moves in synch with the land. Nature pretty much dictates the rhythm. Ticks, leeches, muddy feet from walking barefoot. Chickens, goats, floods and fires. It took me a while to feel safe in the aloneness of the bush.
We are not completely isolated but it feels so different from urban life. Wild animals and trees are a different type of company.
We live in a community with 14 other shareholders. Still, our land is big enough so most of us don’t see our neighbours. This natural rhythm was foreign to me when I first arrived. The pace of the earth, of the plants and trees that surround us and the rhythm of the animals was of a different beat from the one I had been accustomed to dancing to.
What a joy in this rewilding.
We live in a Wild Life Reserve so we can’t have cats or dogs. No predators allowed. Our second-best choice was goats. Getting to know a kind of animal I hadn’t been exposed to EVER was new. Getting to fall in love with their nature was special.
There was the “goat factor” and there was also the type of goat. The two siblings were very different. Chester, the first one to die, was a goat that behaved more like a dog. He was as cuddly as goats could ever be. He was in love with his human family and a bit of a bully to his brother Bullseye. When Chester died we knew that we’d either need to get more goats or become Bullseye’s pack (as much as possible for humans and goats to be a pack).
So that’s what we did.
We’d take him on walks around our property and he would hang out with us as we swam in the creek. He’d smell and nibble lots of new greens and he would never walk back home with one of us if we “broke off the pack”. Meaning, if one of us decided to stay at the swimming hole while others wanted to go back home. Every time that happened he would just stay still, stubborn as only goats can be. He would not move until we’d give in and walk back home together.
Holding him yesterday as his body became limp and lifeless felt sweet and tender. The type of grief that pets have opened up in me is of a new kind.
This was the second time in my life I had my heart broken open by the loss of a pet. Chester died a bit over a year ago, and now Bullseye. Even though I am still working and living “as usual”, my heart is softer and my seeing and relating to the world has a watercolour painting quality to it.
With my heart so tender and soft, with light gently pouring from it (this is how it feels) it is as if everything I do and everyone I touch will be blessed by the love that Bullseye evoked in us and by the void of his absence.
I shared with a friend just recently over a voice message that moments such as these give me a sense of living inside a sad and exquisite poem. My whole life, the whole world feels like an excruciatingly beautiful and equally painful poem.
Every heartbeat with inherent value. Which is true but often forgotten.
I understand that in times of such violence and hatred in the world, grieving the loss of a pet might not seem as relevant as grieving the loss of human lives. Whereas I understand and respect this thinking process I don’t experience life this way.
Our loved ones, pets, people, and trees, are our immediate gateways to our collective love and grief. Through feeling this pain deeply, through holding him in my arms as he died, through carrying his limp body across the paddock I felt as if I was more able to connect to the pain of the world than when I read the news from my couch and make cold assessments on who is right and who is wrong.
The small light pouring from my heart today in a very soft and tender way has me connect more intimately with the hearts of mothers, sisters, fathers, and friends of people going through a rough moment in life.
Life-filled-body.
Lifeless body.
One moment we are here, the next we are gone.
This portal that opens up in the “death chamber” (this is how it felt yesterday and still today) is of a particular quality and I am so grateful for it.
I am hurting and I am also soft and I can’t help but wonder what would happen in the world if more of us allowed the gentle trickling down of grieving light to pour through our hearts and touch the hearts of others. How would relationships be shaped and policies be made if humanity’s heart was deeply felt and held?
For a cyclically informed society, befriending death is vital. It is not easy and it shouldn’t be. Softness doesn’t come from “easy” but it comes when we let our hearts be fully touched by life and death.
As I prepare to publish this piece I realize that today is the darkest phase of the moon, the death of one moon cycle, just before the birth of a new one.
How perfect. Maybe life is a beautiful poem after all.
What a profoundly moving reflection you've shared. The depth of your connection with Bullseye and the raw honesty with which you've approached this part of life's journey is truly inspiring. Your ability to find beauty and poetry in moments of sorrow speaks volumes about your strength and the tenderness of your spirit. The "death chamber" you described, where profound love and loss intermingle, seems to be a sacred space that, while painful, brings about a unique clarity and connection to the world around us.
It's a delicate balance to maintain, feeling the weight of such moments without being overwhelmed by them. How do you find the strength to embrace these emotions so fully? Your perspective enriches our understanding of grief, showing it not just as a journey through pain but also a pathway to deeper empathy and connection. Thank you for sharing this touching story.
I'm so sorry to hear about your loss, Adriana. Our furry friends are family members, and it hurts to lose them. Thanks for expressing what you're going through so beautifully.